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Sunday, April 30, 2017

Study Links Diet Soda To Higher Risk Of Stroke, Dementia

Americans trying to stay
healthy have abandoned sugary drinks for diet drinks in droves over the past
few decades on the theory that the latter is better than the former.

Now, more evidence has
emerged to refute that rationale.

Indeed, a new study shows
an association between diet soda and both stroke and dementia, with people
drinking diet soda daily being almost three times as likely to develop stroke
and dementia as those who consumed it weekly or less.

“This included a higher
risk of ischemic stroke, where blood vessels in the brain become obstructed and
Alzheimer’s disease dementia, the most common form of dementia,” said Matthew
Pase, a Boston University School of Medicine neurologist and the lead author of
the study published in the
journal Stroke.

While emphasizing that the
research did not show causation, only a correlation, Pase saidin a video explaining the studythat diet drinks “might not be
a healthy alternative.”

The study, described only
as a hypothesis by its lead author was surrounded by caveats.

While the risk was
greater, the absolute numbers were low. “In our study,” thelead
author said, ” three percent of the people had a new stroke and five
percent developed dementia, so we’re still talking about a small number of
people developing either stroke or dementia.”

The lead author also
notedits many
limitations in an accompanying commentary from the American Heart Association:

The participants were
overwhelmingly white, and it is possible that ethnic preferences may influence
how often people select sugary or artificially sweetened drinks ….People did
not drink sugary sodas as often as diet sodas, which Pase said could be one
reason the researchers did not see an association with regular soda since the
participants may have been health conscious and just not consuming them as
frequently. The main limitation, Pase said, is the important point that an
observational study like this cannot prove that drinking artificially-sweetened
drinks is linked to strokes or dementia, but it does identify an intriguing
trend that will need to be explored in other studies.

Still, people should be
“cautious” about their intake of diet sodas, Pase said, noting that more study
is needed.

And they should most
definitely not retreat to sugary drinks, he said.

They have been associated
not only with obesity and its consequences,such as diabetes, but with poorer memory and smaller
overall brain volumes.

The study kept track of
2,888 individuals age 45 and over for the development of a stroke and 1,484
participants age 60 and older for dementia over a 10 year period. All are
participants in the famous Framingham Heart Study, several thousand men and
women who have had blood tests done periodically since the 1970s.

The study “found that
those who reported consuming at least one artificially sweetened drink a day,
compared to less than one a week, were 2.96 times as likely to have an ischemic
stroke, caused by blood vessel blockage, and 2.89 times as likely to be
diagnosed with dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease,” said a summary from the
AHA.

The study “found that those
who reported consuming at least one artificially sweetened drink a day,
compared to less than one a week, were 2.96 times as likely to have an ischemic
stroke, caused by blood vessel blockage, and 2.89 times as likely to be
diagnosed with dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease,” said a summary from the
AHA.

A parallel study of sugary
drinks did not find an association with stroke or dementia.

The artificial sweeteners
consumed by those in the study included saccharin, acesulfame-K, and aspartame.
Other sweeteners, including sucralose, neotame and stevia have been approved by
the FDA since, the study said.

The results were adjusted
for variables such as age, sex, caloric intake, diet quality, physical activity
and smoking. (For those seeking more detail,the study is downloadablein its entirety.)

“So, the bottom line is,
‘Have more water and have less diet soda,”

Christopher Gardner,
director of Nutrition Studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, said
in an AHA release. “And don’t switch to real soda.”

He added “Nobody ever said
diet sodas were a health food.”

The AHA release quoted
Rachel K. Johnson, professor of nutrition at the University of Vermont: “We
need to be cautious in the interpretation of these results. It doesn’t prove
cause and effect. When you see these kinds of associations, you want to always
ask what is the biological plausibility, what is the mechanism that might be
causing this?”

“We have a robust body of
literature on the adverse effects of sugary drinks. Absolutely the message is
not to switch to sugary drinks,” she said.

The American Beverage
Association was quick to defend diet drinks.

“Low-calorie sweeteners
have been proven safe by worldwide government safety authorities as well as
hundreds of scientific studies and there is nothing in this research that
counters this well-established fact,”it said in a statement. It added:

While we respect the
mission of these organizations to help prevent conditions like stroke and
dementia, the authors of this study acknowledge that their conclusions do not —
and cannot — prove cause and effect.

This post has been updated
and corrected. An original version said stevia was an artificial sweetener. In
fact, it comes from a plant.

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